Supreme Court says states can demand photo ID for voting

By MARK SHERMAN
Associated Press Writer
Mon Apr 28, 6:09 PM ET

WASHINGTON - States can require voters to produce photo identification, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, upholding a Republican-inspired law that Democrats say will keep some poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots.

Twenty-five states require some form of ID, and the court's 6-3 decision rejecting a challenge to Indiana's strict voter ID law could encourage others to adopt their own measures. Oklahoma legislators said the decision should help them get a version approved.

The ruling means the ID requirement will be in effect for next week's presidential primary in Indiana, where a significant number of new voters are expected to turn out for the Democratic contest between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

The results could say something about the effect of the law, either because a large number of voters will lack identification and be forced to cast provisional ballots or because the number turns out to be small.

Supporters of the law say it's all about preventing fraud.

Indiana has a "valid interest in protecting 'the integrity and reliability of the electoral process,'" said Justice John Paul Stevens in an opinion that was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Stevens said that Indiana's desire to prevent fraud and to inspire voter confidence in the election system are important even though there have been no reports of the kind of fraud the law was designed to combat. Evidence of voters being inconvenienced by the law's requirements also is scant. For the overwhelming majority of voters, an Indiana driver's license serves as the identification.

The law does not apply to absentee balloting, where election experts agree the threat of fraud is higher.

The Indiana law was passed in 2005. Democrats and civil rights groups opposed it as unconstitutional and called it a thinly veiled effort to discourage groups of voters who tend to prefer Democrats.

It was in effect during the 2006 elections when Democrats picked up three congressional seats in Indiana and won control of the state House of Representatives.

Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas agreed with the outcome Monday, but wrote separately in favor of a broader defense of voter ID laws.

"The universally applicable requirements of Indiana's voter-identification law are eminently reasonable. The burden of acquiring, possessing and showing a free photo identification is simply not severe, because it does not 'even represent a significant increase over the usual burdens of voting,'" Scalia said.

Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter dissented.

Indiana's voter ID law "threatens to impose nontrivial burdens on the voting rights of tens of thousands of the state's citizens," Souter said.

The targets of the law, he said, are "voters who are poor and old."

Yet Stevens wrote that the law does not single out groups of voters for different treatment. "We cannot conclude that the statute imposes 'excessively burdensome requirements' on any class of voters," he said. That opinion suggested the outcome could be different in a state where voters could provide evidence that their rights had been impaired.

Indiana provides IDs free of charge to people without driver's licenses. It also allows voters who lack photo ID's to cast a provisional ballot and then show up within 10 days at their county courthouse to produce identification or otherwise attest to their identity.

Stevens said these provisions also help reduce the burden on people who lack driver's licenses.

Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita, a Republican, praised the decision. "This says to the voter you can have confidence again in the elections because we're doing some of the things the guy at the video store does when you go and rent a video," Rokita said.

Ken Falk, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, said the court was willing to burden "tens of thousands of eligible voters who lack a government-issued identification while accepting at face value Indiana's unsubstantiated claim of voter fraud." The ACLU brought the case on behalf of Indiana voters.

The proliferation of voter ID laws followed the enactment in 2002 of the federal Help America Vote Act. The law was designed in response to the disputed 2000 presidential election. The law's voter ID provisions apply to first-time voters and do not mandate photo identification.

Many Democrats criticized the ruling Monday. It places "an unnecessary burden on elderly and low-income voters, not to mention other voters of disparate racial and ethnic backgrounds," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

Mary Wilson, president of the League of Women Voters, said her group has never found a problem with in-person voter fraud. "We'd be the first ones out there to prevent voter fraud, if there really was a problem," she said.

Several critics pointed to a footnote in Stevens' opinion to show how far back he went — 140 years — to describe the corrosive effects of widespread fraud at polling places, a reference to Boss Tweed's influence in New York's municipal elections in 1868.

Republicans, meanwhile, praised the decision for recognizing the threat of voter fraud. "Today's ruling rightfully allows states to safeguard against such destructive abuse," said House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio.

In Oklahoma, Republican legislators said the ruling should help them pass a less-stringent voter ID bill. The Oklahoma House has approved legislation to require voters to present some form of identification — including a utility bill or bank statement. The measure faces a final vote by the state Senate.

Monday's case was the court's first significant foray into election law since the Bush v. Gore dispute that sealed the 2000 election for George W. Bush. The voter ID ruling, with no majority opinion and four of the nine justices writing, lacked the conservative-liberal split that marked the 2000 case.

The consolidated cases are Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, 07-21, and Indiana Democratic Party v. Rokita, 07-25.

LINK

Court’s voter-ID ruling vindicates a whipping boy
By JIM WOOTEN | Tuesday, April 29, 2008, 07:23 AM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

First up should be the American Civil Liberties Union, Ted Kennedy, Barack Obama and other partisans on the left who made former Justice Department official Hans A. von Spakovsky the whipping boy of their vicious campaign to whip up the Democratic base against the reasonable requirement that voters produce identification at the polls.

They were brutal. Kennedy, according to The Washington Post, wrote to then-Chairman Trent Lott of the Senate Rules Committee objecting to his nomination to the Federal Elections Commission. Von Spakovsky, who was appointed in 2001 to the election-reform unit of the Justice Department’s voting rights section, “may be at the heart of the political interference that is undermining the Department’s enforcement of federal civil laws,” said Kennedy.

Obama, Kennedy and other Democrats blocked von Spakovsky’s permanent appointment to the FEC on the basis of his belief that states could require voters to produce proper identification before voting.

Guess what?

The U.S. Supreme Court agrees with von Spakovsky. The court said so Monday in an opinion that is as emphatic as it gets these days.

The Associated Press described the 6-3 opinion upholding an Indiana’s Voter ID law as “splintered.” Five-four is splintered. Six-three means that even the liberal bloc “splintered” to join the majority. “We cannot conclude that the statute imposes ‘excessively burdensome requirements’ on any class of voters,” wrote —- sit down, conservatives, you’re not going to believe the name that follows —- Justice John Paul Stevens.

He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy.

In an election, the 6-3 outcome would have been interpreted as a landslide. A landslide, slam-dunk, blow-out for the very view that got poor old Hans von Spakovsky vilified.

Von Spakovsky, a former chairman of the Fulton County Republican Party and member of the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections , was appointed by former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft as counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights, specializing in voting and election issues.

President George W. Bush gave him a recess appointment to the Federal Election Commission in January 2006. Because Democrats blocked efforts to make the recess appointment permanent, he threw in the towel on Jan. 1 of this year, leaving the six-member FEC with just two commissioners, two shy of the number needed to conduct official business. Von Spakovsky has since become a Heritage Foundation scholar researching and writing about election issues.

While opponents needed no excuse to oppose Von Spakovsky, the pretense for declaring him an enemy of the voting rights of humankind was an article he wrote for the Texas Review of Law & Politics in which he declared that there was no evidence a voter ID requirement disenfranchised minorities, as alleged. The article contained this truth: “The objections are merely anecdotal and based on the unproven perception that minority groups such as African-Americans do not possess identification documents to the same degree as Caucasians.”

There’s never been any question that states can impose reasonable requirements on voting. Requiring proper identification proving that you are who you say you are is eminently reasonable, as von Spakovsky and —- pinch me! —- Justice John Paul Stevens acknowledge. (Von Spakovsky has written two pieces for Heritage that bear reading: “Stolen Identities, Stolen Votes” on March 10 and “Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire” on April 16 about 100,000 fraudulent votes cast in Chicago during the 1982 Illinois gubernatorial election.)

This is an example of small matters made large for partisan purposes and of good public officials trashed without mercy.

For Hans A. von Spakovsky, though, a day of vindication comes.

It was Monday, April 28.

Oh . . . JDave . . . .Come on!

See anything wrong with that editorial?

It mentions Obama?

Seriously, no, I'm not getting it.

You have Republican appointed Justices ruling for a Republican Party Chairmen's policies, who was a RECESS appointment by a Republican President . . . imposing VOTER policies that favor Republicans.

Vindication?

Yes, Stevens is perceived as liberal. But when I was in lawschool, he was in the middle. And he's ALWAYS been the most idiosyncratic justice. I'll have to read the opinion, of course, to comment further.

Kind of curious: What is "Anectodal" for the Democrats is "Where's theres smoke, there's fire" for the Conservatives.

When it comes to voting rights, is this much partisinship a healthy thing?

So you're claiming partisanship?

Souter was appointed by a Republican. He voted the other way. Stevens has not voted for "policies that favor Republicans" in AT LEAST 15 years. He's hardly a partisan. He was on the other side of Bush v. Gore.

So no, I don't see anything wrong with it. I think it's quite a reach to suggest that those in the 6-member majority voted this way because they were nominated by Repulbicans. I can't answer your last question because I don't accept the premise (that there is "this much partisanship").

It's not a landslide because the most idiosyncratic justice doesn't vote with the liberal block. The conservative base was solid.

I am not imposing party partisanship on the supreme court. I'm indicting him for partisan ideology .

That's fine -- then just say it wasn't a landslide.

Because claiming it was partisan ideology (on the part of Stevens???) is not warranted given his prior vote and dissenting opinion in the Bush v. Gore decision.

Bottom line, it's a fox in charge of the hen house scenario as far as Spakovsky goes.

Typical Bush move.

Oops again. . . NOT partisan ideology on Stevens. He probably just pulled one out of his ass like he has so many times before. No, the ideology is on the other five. They vote that way because they are conservative, not Republican . . . I hope.

Ah, gotcha. Okay -- even then, I'm not sure it's PARTISAN ideology.

I think the issue is what Ramen and I have argued at length before -- regardless of motivation (and he and I disagree on that), is it unconstitutional to require a person who wants to vote to ID himself or herself sufficiently to avoid fraud?

If not, then fine. But if SO, the fact that it COULD theoretically affect Democrats more than Republicans does not thereby MAKE it unconstitutional.

One could as easily say that the Democrat justices (including Souter nr6 ) voted out of their own partisan ideology. But I don't agree with that, either.

BULLSHIT!

There is TONS of evidence that the burden is placed disproportionately on minority voters. It is a basic, known fact that income correlates strongly with race, so any burden that is placed on the poor will disproportionately affect blacks. Considering that blacks vote overwhelmingly Democratic, and that poor people in general tend to vote Democratic, I think the implication here is pretty obvious.

The ironic thing about Von Spakovsky's article (as cited by Wooten) is that the evidence on in-person fraud (e.g., fraud that would be prevented with an ID law) is what is "anecdotal" and based on an "unproven perception". The strongest evidence of widespread systematic fraud has to do with absentee voting. Indiana's ID law does NOT require a photo ID in order to get an absentee ballot.

So Indiana requires a photo ID for in-person voting, where evidence of fraud has not been shown to be widespread, but does not require a photo ID for absentee ballot, which experts agree is much more prone to fraud.

And we're supposed to believe that the state is sincerely concerned about preventing fraud? Again, bullshit!

Is it unconstitutional to require a photo ID?

If so, how so?

First, it doesn't "theoretically" affect Democratic voters more than Republican ones. It's an EMPIRICAL fact.

Does that make it unconstitutional? I don't know, but there is a strong argument that partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional. The Justices have said that it is not judiciable and they don't want to wade into the 'political thicket', but several recent rulings have left open the possibility that excessive future partisan gerrymandering MIGHT be unconstitutional.

Think about it this way. What if Indiana required a state-issued photo ID for the Democratic primary, but allowed any type of photo ID (e.g., non-state-issued) for Republicans. Would the disproportionate burden placed on Democrats violate the Constitution?

Was I speaking to the constitutionality of photo ID's, or was I responding to a more specific part of the article you cited?

Change the facts, change the case.

Requiring different forms of ID would be an equal protection problem.

Can I answer what your intentions were?

I just asked a question.

Indiana law requires a different form of ID than non-drivers. Why is there a requirement that the ID be the one created by the state instead of other, perfectly valid form of identification that are accepted for people applying for jobs, bank accounts, and cashing checks?

The assumption is that the state-issued ID is somehow more secure despite the fact that the same materials are required to get the state-issued ID (e.g., social security, birth certificate, etc.) that were previously required for in-person voting or to get a non state-issue ID.

Are "non drivers" a protected class?

Also, it is NOT a "different form of ID." BOTH are state-issued IDs. One merely gives license to drive while the other does not.

Actual opinion, for anyone interested:

Crawford v. Marion County Election Board

And failed to address the points I was making. You cited an article that was making factually incorrect claims.

The disproportionate affect on African Americans is not theoretical, it's empirical. It is not anecdotal and based on some perception, is it factual and based on solid empirical findings.

That may not make it unconstitutional (or it might, considering the Voting Rights Act protection of minorities against burdens on voting), but let's at least deal with the same set of facts.

The ID laws target a type of fraud that has not been shown to be widespread, while the Indiana law (as well as several other states) do not require a photo ID to obtain an absentee ballot, which is a form of fraud that election experts agree is much more prone to fraud than in-person voting.

In Indiana, a photo-ID is not required for absentee voting. It is required for in-person voting. Different form of ID.

As far as non-drivers are concerned, the state-issued ID is redundant, which makes it an unnecessary burden that disproportionately affects blacks. The intent is to ensure that the voter is actually the person listed on the voter rolls. The photo ID places a burden on voters, nobody debates that. The question is whether the burden is justified by the state. Given the redundancy, I don't think it's justified.

I think a lot of this depends on the implementation of the policy by the states. If Indiana did what Georgia initially tried to do -- have ID locations scattered sparsely throughout the state (and not have a single ID center located in Atlanta nor any other area with majority black populations), then I think the law clearly violates the VRA and that the intent is obvious. If there are plenty of centers that are easily located then the burden lessens. There's still the redundancy issue, but the burden becomes less of a concern.

Yeah, what I said:

FWIW, I'd add the photo ID requirement to absentee ballots as well and be done with it.

But they didn't add the photo ID requirement to absentee ballots. What does that tell you about the intention of the law considering the disparate impact on poor and minority voters?